NeedToUseYou
Posts: 2297
Joined: 12/24/2005
From: None of your business
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The problem is simple. Our system is based around the concept of perpetual growth, that growth is required to pay interest. We are not growing at the same rate we once were, population is flatlining for the US, and most modern nations, most of the growth in population is because of importing population growth. And under our current technologies, eventually we will hit an upper limit wall of the global population capacity. What? 20-40 years tops without a radical advance in energy generation.
So, that is part one of what is required for real growth, population.
Part two, just like spaghetti you need spaghetti sauce to turn those plain noodles into to tasty spaghetti, an impoverished person raising goats does not interact in our economic model, thus that goat herder needs to be converted into a consumer, and a consumer requires resources to make his products and the products he will consume. So, you need a corresponding ready supply of gas for his new car he will want, oil for all of his products, and you need an environment(government), for him to live that is stable enough for him to get from goat herder to Cadillac driving consumer.
Now, unless you are living on another planet it is obvious we can't double the rate of oil consumption without impoverishing ourselves. We can't double the rate of deforestation without stripping the world bare, we can't feed twice as many people under this model without doubling the amount of oil that requires.
So, the solution if one wanted keep this system going and make available enough resources to raise up more people to the consumer culture we live in, is to find a technology that will drastically reduce the cost of energy. That is the only solution, as if you can find a way of producing energy at near zero cost without resource depletion, you can then use that energy to recycle all the old consumables thus making more resources available overall, and extending the number of people that can enter the consumer world without degrading the lifestyle of other consumers and thus fuel real growth in consumption which ultimately pays for Interest on credit as we use it.
It is an energy problem, as recycling is very energy intensive, thus why it makes little sense to recycle most things.
If we don't do that then real growth will eventually die, and it will evolve into a mere shifting of wealth and lifestyle as opposed to bringing more people into a more comfortable lifestyle. And most probable the shifting of wealth to fewer and fewer as the interest on the credit required to enter into production would be harder and harder to overcome the more stagnant a system becomes, thus the only ones to afford that would be those that already had the money. And if we select not to go balls to the wall in finding very cheap energy it will also mean a very measurable reduction in all parts of the Interest related economy. You need many less finacial services in a non-growing system, it just works that way.
So, that is the problem. It is energy. It always is really.
Find ultracheap energy and our financial system can function as is, if we don't it will need changed, and we will need to change, most probably for the worse.
edited to add, even more important that motive energy is cheap energy is required for water, as we are creeping closer and closer to a situation in more and more places to where fresh water is limiting growth.
< Message edited by NeedToUseYou -- 11/12/2008 10:59:35 PM >
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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 
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